1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the recording of ghost- and artifact-free three-dimensional images throughout the electro-magnetic spectrum. (Inter alia for photography, film-making, video, television, infra-red imaging, microwave, biometrics, medicine, and astronomy). More specifically, this invention relates to ghost-free three-dimensional recording in the visible spectrum, for example with film or hand-held cameras. Steps in this present invention relate to preparing these images for transmission and display.
2. Description of the Related Art
A pair of human eyes has evolved through aeons of trial and error as an efficient method of focusing stereo images without ghosts or artifacts for transmittal to (and storage in) the brain. An eyeball is shown in FIG. 1
The absence of ghosts and artifacts is achieved as follows. Images are intensely and acutely focused on the fovea centralis, a one millimeter area with very closely packed cones. As the nerve center of the eye, with a thousandth of its retinal area, the fovea uses fully half of the eye's optic nerves to send highly concentrated information to the brain. This means that the information gathering capacity of the remaining cones diminishes rapidly through the parafoveal and perifoveal areas until at the outer limbs the eyes perceive light and colours but with little form.
This last critical fact appears to have been (thus far) little noted in the design of 3D cameras. From the origins of photography (and especially filming) it has been assumed that an image must be equally clear in every dimension. However, it has been observed in this invention that the ability of the eyes to ignore virtually all peripheral information as irrelevant (except in emergency) has led to the brilliant success of specie and primate vision. It is that the information noticed, but ignored, by the eyes at the peripheries, does not (and should not) detract from the utter clarity of the central focus. It has also been observed that any pair (or multiplicity) of conjoined imaging devices will produce ghosts (a) unless they are tightly focused and (b) unless images at the periphery are essentially ignored by the system.
It is further noted that two basic possibilities emerge for the viewing of a three-dimensional image: either viewing a “foveated” image, which is extremely clear in a chosen spot when seen with either stereo glasses or presented on a prismatic or parallax screen; or viewing a “super”-image which, similarly presented, is extremely clear all over in three dimensions, since the ghosting has been eliminated by a process (shown in an algorithm below) of reconstruction.
It is here observed that the human brain, partly under its own volition, continuously reconstructs three-dimensional scenes from myriad and minutely focused observations, often quasi-randomly selected, in real time. Stored in the brain as “memory”, this is refreshed and refined with new observations, and “re-membered”, (often vividly) even with eyes closed.
In the present invention the “re-membering” (or as is said here, “re-construction” or “synthesis”) is done (without human error) in virtually real time. Displays can be viewed (even without glasses) as they are being recorded
It is also noted here that there are other popular techniques for recording, involving beam-splitting and multiple optical pathways, mechanical shutters, liquid crystals and polarizers. Virtually all these techniques try to capture the “whole field” either sequentially or at once.
It is noted that for displays, shuttered glasses, polarizing glasses, and anaglyph (coloured) glasses are usually required. As a (good) example, “Luma (or 2D) plus Depth” is able to produce dazzling artificial images for advertising, but preparation requires weeks and months of high-powered computing. It can be viewed on prismatic (“signage”) screens and seen in some European supermarkets (without glasses). But, like the other techniques, this fails in real time recording and with real images.
What appears required for providing content to modern 3D displays is a recording system with the qualities of low-cost, light-weight, real-time, long-lived, reliable, of high image quality and self-sufficient—in other words, portable and useable in real time. The output of this recording system should be adaptable to any type of display. An embodiment of just such a system is here shown in FIG. 20.